In the technical field of cooling circuits, in particular cooling circuits designed for a cold plate, it is known to couple a cold plate with a cooling circuit, so that a fluid communication can be established between them, along a fluid direction, and the cooling fluid cools some electronic components mounted on the cold plate. The cold plate is provided with a circulation channel and two external coupling elements, whereas the cooling circuit is equipped with a manifold supplying the cooling fluid and with a connection plug, on which two coupling elements are mounted. The coupling elements of the cooling circuit and the external coupling elements of the cold plate are designed to come in a coupled configuration and should ensure a fluidic communication.
However, the coupling elements of the cooling circuit and of the cold plate might be in some shifted positions, as they are not in the coupled configuration, so that the fluid communication might be problematic.
Moreover, during the fluid communication, it is known to move the cold plate in a direction which is transversal with respect to the fluid direction, in order to achieve a locked or connected configuration of the cold plate.
Thus, it is known to provide coupling elements which are capable of a tight movement with respect to a corresponding fluid channel with which each coupling element is in fluid communication. This tight movement allows compensating a misalignment of the coupling elements. However, such a tight movement of the coupling elements must take in consideration the maximal amplitude of the misalignment and the transversal movement towards the locked configuration of the cold plate. Therefore, the external coupling elements of the cooling circuit are provided with large input chamfers which make the coupling elements bulky.
Moreover, it is known to urge, for an example by an elastic device, each coupling element towards a middle position before the compensation of the misalignment during the coupling. Such an urging effort might alter the coupling elements during coupling. It is then necessary to add some guiding posts for the cold plate, in order to align the external coupling elements of the cold plate and the coupling elements of the cooling circuit before coupling. Therefore, this approach also leads to a bulky solution, which is not suitable for some uses.